The North East Emerging Artist Award is an annual award at Seaton Delaval Hall in Northumberland for final year students or early career artists to provide opportunities for mentoring and development of site specific work in an historic context.
The North East Emerging Artist Award was established in 2021 and developed by independent curator, Matthew Jarratt and Seaton Delaval Hall’s General Manager, Emma Thomas. It is open to artists from all artforms including music, sound, theatre, film, fashion, literature and design as well as fine art and is for artists in or from the North East who are in the final year of their undergraduate degree, studying for a masters’ degree, who have graduated in the last three years or equivalent. The award’s aim is to showcase site-specific contemporary art in a historic context and to encourage emerging artists to develop proposals at the hall.
Since launching in 2021, the award has provided mentoring and funding opportunities for thirty-three final year students and early career artists in the North East, with thirteen individuals going on to have their proposals realised.
Find out more about the North East Emerging Artist in this short film. (Running time approximately nine minutes).
Meet our finalists, whose work will be displayed in spring 2027
Otis Grove-White’s work, The Rooks Return, examines humanity’s growing disconnect from the natural world, encouraging audiences to reconnect with the rhythms, processes and wildlife that surround it. His work involves crafting costumes from natural materials, informed by European folk festival traditions. Drawing on stories including the devastating 1822 fire - believed to have been caused by nesting rooks - and the historic Delaval family’s infamous “sparrow mumbling” tradition, the project centres on a striking feathered costume and performance that pays tribute to the birds that continue to shape life at the hall. The performance will be filmed and exhibited at the hall.
2023
Sculptor Rachel’s work featured cast pewter bats suspended by a steel rig, representing the bats that have made the hall their home since the fire of 1822. The piece was suspended in the Entrance Hall, where the bats hibernate in winter.
Throughout its history Seaton Delaval Hall and its inhabitants have been synonymous with artistic support, from commissioning painter Arthur Pond to produce views of the Hall, the backing of erotic novelist, John Clelland, and the patronage of William Bell who produced family portraits and tutored Rhoda Delaval through to the 21st Lord Hastings’ support of The Royal Ballet. The North East Emerging Artist Award continues this rich tradition.
